The Fleeting
by redchinese
Summary: a series of introspection from everyone in FMA- drabbly drabbles.
1. Vengance

He won't lie, living in the alleyways isn't an easy day to day thing, but he's long lost track of when it began, nor does he care if it will ever end.  
>The grime between his finger nails and the dirt in the creases of his eyes, they mirror the ash filled thoughts in his mind.<p>

Ash harbours smoke and embers, and he cannot rest when it's still alive. So sleep wafts by him and garbage sustains him, while the vacuum left by fire coerces his blood to simmer and his teeth to clench.

He doesn't know if he should feel more than that, he tries not to.

* * *

><p><em>~Scar: <em>On the pervasive effects of hatred on his life  
>no particular time in canon-earlier then meeting Mei Chang and his start in helping Amerstris against father<p> 


	2. Turning point

Leave it to honhenhime to screw him over with the truth.  
>But maybe he deserved it in this case.<p>

Because its not mom, not a woman, not a man, not_ alive._

Its not mom and it never could have been.

Something cackles like a lunatic at the rain pouring down on the pieces of dirt and hair.  
>"That's right, those who have died, cannot ever be brought back to original, no matter what was done. This is truth the truth. The taboo of the therory of complete human transmuation-"<p>

He could feel his wits fraying and overlapping in so many places, on and on and-

_"Why did i ever do it!"_

"**ED**, be strong- keep your head clear!"

"I'm OKAY."

_Okay._

And he looks back to earth, at the worried voice of beannie granny, feels the mud soaking through his pants from the roots of the charcole tree.

At his childhood's morgue, and the rain that's stripping away the curse put onto the place.

"keep my head clear..."

Because this body is lifeless here, so his brothers must be elsewhere.

Breathing with Truth.

"...eh"

* * *

><p><em>~edward: <em>from despair to hope

Vol.11 Ch 43- when Ed and Pinako dig up the remains of the 'person' he and AL made instead of their mother


	3. Senses

Complete darkness comes something of a surprise to him.

Its not foreboding, there are no shimmering greys that happen when you blink.

But its empty, featureless and blank.

And that is hard to look at,when everything else is the smell of gunpowder, that rumble of crumbling concrete, and the warmth of her arm.

He hates it, to be suddenly cut off of something that he just had. He hates having to keep his eyes closed all the time, because opening them reminds him his eyes don't have something to open to.

But honhenhime's screaming, "EDWARD!"

There's the solid thunk of metal on concrete.

Ed's shrill voice,"AL, what are you doing, NO STOP! AL!"

Al's steady but brittle,"Brother..."

"-Win."

Roy forgets to close his eyes, what his ears feed him are much more important.

* * *

><p><em>~Roy: <em>on blindness, and how both important and unimportant that limit is on seeing whats going on in the world.  
>Vol. 27 Ch. 107- during the final battle against Father, where Al gives back Ed's arm.<p> 


	4. Blood

It covers him in all the wrong places when he is carried half dead through their door

It blotches on Granny's face when he spasms in shock, making all the wrinkles she didn't remember being there, appear deeper.

It makes Al wash his hands like the possessed.

He's still there, outside, in front of the water pipes, splashing over his chain mail hands, again and again.

"Al?"

The pitter patter of water falling on earth continues, Dan whimpers and the backyard door clacks shut where she leaves it.

"Please AL."

She touches his cold back and he trembles.

"I... I can't Winry," he whispers, echoy and terrified, reaching from a boy couldn't have disappeared in just one night.

"It's still **there**._ Brother's blood. **Winry-I**-_"

Her too small arms try to wrap around him, he can't feel her warmth but the pressure behind him, he can.  
>The splashing right in front of him becomes distant.<p>

It must feel cold for her, outside, He realizes.

"Its alright- you- you don't have to keep doing this." She sniffs, through huffs and hiccups,

"You're allowed to want to cry Al."

He hugs her too small body tightly, and rocks oh his heels.

* * *

><p>~<em>Winry<em>: on ties that bind  
>the night of the transmutation that took Al's body and Ed's limbs<p> 


	5. As the Peak

Her first impression of Buccaneer was that he looked like a Xingese bouncer who lost a bet to a bunch of street punks. Why else would a man walk around with a mohawk in the dead of winter Briggs?

He defended it, saying that it matched his wispy mustache, and was loved by his nieces and nephews.

She told him that he was just trying to hide his balding.

Buccaneer roared with laughter then, saying that if she treated all the men with that spirit, they'd be hers in no time.

He was right naturally, and over the years that he worked under her, it surprised her how many times he was right, though she never purposely let that on.

Now she's lifting the cloth over his body, lying along the rest of the soldiers that had served her.

"What were his last words sergeant?" She flicked the cloth back to cover his stoney, serene smile again.

"Sir- after confirming that Ling Yao was defending the main gate, He said, ''Now I can rest in peace.' When private Britham and Donald urged him to stay awake, he refused, quote on quote 'the air's too polluted down here. Farewell, my brothers. I'm off to a new place, somewhere even higher than the peak of Briggs. See you all later.' and was pronounced dead at 11:56."

_Heh- higher than the peak of Briggs hn?_

"You couldn't pass the chance to mock me at least once about leaving, could you?" she ought to have 'cheeky bastard' en-blazed on his post mortem medal.

"...Sir?"

"Have that reported to whoever in charge of casualty compensation, and a written copy in my office," he bowed curtly and scurried off while she rose to her feet.

That man always did call her the Queen of Briggs.

"Keep waiting Buccaneer, I'm going to rise higher than your blue sky before we meet again."

She could almost hear him reply as she walked out of the bay.

"_Aye ma'am."_

* * *

><p><em>~Olivier: <em>a piece of sentimentality on a old friend she finally let herself have.  
>Vol. 27 Ch. 108- final chapter- some point after rescuing all the injured, to face the dead.<p> 


End file.
